Host Christian Pearson and producer Ben Beck discuss their impending research trip while recording in an unconventional studio: the San Francisco International Airport. Ben goes into detail about research design and specific interventions to be implemented in Cambodia, while Christian shares some surprising findings about fixed vs. growth mindset. Next, they talk about the experiences they are most excited for, including touring the Angkor Wat Temple and exploring the floating villages on the Tonle Sap. Finally, Christian closes the episode by announcing a summer hiatus, but promises to return for Season 2 in the Fall.
Inside the Cambodia Project Episode 15: Airport Dialogue
with Dr. Ben Beck
[00:00:00.310] – Christian
Hello, I’m Christian, and you’re listening to Inside the Cambodia Project, an educational podcast where we discuss cutting-edge research on sustainable business in an emerging market. The last episode, I talked with Dr. Scott Webb, a BIO associate professor of global supply chain. It was really interesting. We talked about the intricacies of logistics in a global marketplace, and he shared some really interesting experiences just personally navigating the cultural differences that you’ll find working on a global basis. For this episode, I have the opportunity to interview the producer of the podcast, Dr. Ben Beck, and it’s going to be a special episode. You’ll see why in a minute. But as always, we’re going to start and kick things off with a quote. This quote I’m actually not sure where it comes from. In fact, I could just be making it up. But I think I’ve heard it before, and it goes something like, Don’t tell me how much you know. Tell me how many places you’ve been.
[00:01:13.210] – Ben
Or something like that. I love it. That’s a cool quote, even if you don’t know where it came from.
[00:01:16.520] – Christian
Yeah. What does that quote mean to you, Ben?
[00:01:20.530] – Ben
It’s funny that you asked that question because we are in the international terminal outside of gate 815 in the San Francisco Airport.
[00:01:28.980] – Christian
We sure are.
[00:01:30.040] – Ben
Waiting to get on a flight to Cambodia that leaves at 1:05 AM and is going to get us there 13 hours later. Whatever time zone it is going to be there.
[00:01:40.560] – Christian
It’s a little bit much. Yeah.
[00:01:43.210] – Ben
So we’re recording We’re going to be waiting here at the airport because we’re headed to Cambodia. We’re going to launch the next phase of our research project. It’s exciting, but I guess we should apologize. You may hear people going by. A janitor just barely left, but you’re We’re probably going to hear background noise, and that’s just because we’re in an airport.
[00:02:03.100] – Christian
Yep, that’s part of the experience. We’re letting you guys in on this. Ben, can you tell us more? Why are we going to Cambodia?
[00:02:12.100] – Ben
Yeah, because we love to explore. Like you said, don’t tell me what you learned. Tell me how many places you’ve been. No, I’m kidding. As much as we love to explore, the group’s giving us the grants. First of all, the group’s giving us funding for this is the Cyber… The Department of Education with the US runs the Cybergrants, C-I-B-E-R. Something international business. Center for International Business. I could make up the last two, but I’m probably going to offend somebody, so I won’t. The Cybergrants is helping pay for a lot of this project that we’re doing. Then the Dean’s office at the Marriott School of Business at Birmingham University is helping. They’re funding you, Christian, and the few other undergraduate students that are coming with.
[00:02:56.470] – Christian
We’re super thankful. A huge shout out to the Dean’s office at the Marriott School of Business, and to cyber, whatever that acronym is.
[00:03:03.380] – Ben
I know, right? A shout out to them. As much as we love to travel and as much as they want us to have cool experiences, that’s what BIO. Bio is all about cool experiences, right? And learning and growing in a and spiritually. We couldn’t get a grant for that. So we figured we had to actually do some good with our research.Dang. I can imagine.Right. So the reason we’re going to Cambodia is we want to show that small businesses that engage in social don’t just benefit society and their own sphere of influence in which they work, but it will also benefit them. They’ll see increased revenue. So we’re going to Cambodia. We’re going to go to a It’s arguably the second or third largest city in Cambodia. The census records are not fully clear on it. But the town or the city is called Siem Reep. It’s where the Angkor Wat temples are. Beautiful temples. If you saw the Tomb Raider, where Angelina Jolie is going through the old temple-like buildings. There’s vines all over. That’s Angkor. I think that was Anchor Tom, the neighbors of Angkor Wat.
[00:04:11.950] – Christian
Dang, I need to catch up on some Tomb Raider.
[00:04:14.020] – Ben
Right. So we’re going there. So anyone that’s seen the Tomb Raider movies, you may recognize that. We’re going to that town, and we’re going to train 240 businesses on at least revenue tracking. So we’ve staggered it, and we’re randomly assigning businesses, these different groups.
[00:04:33.980] – Christian
So are all 240 businesses getting revenue tracking? Yeah.
[00:04:38.170] – Ben
So all 240 businesses are going to get revenue tracking. So right now, most small businesses in Cambodia are not tracking their revenue. They are, I think you’ve called them in a survival mindset.
[00:04:51.360] – Christian
Yeah, survival entrepreneurs is what they’re called. I was reading a book called Poor Economics by Banerjee and Dufflo. It’s a dense read, but they go into detail about these survival entrepreneurs. And basically, they’re entrepreneurs by trade and not by choice. In other words, they’re basically creating a job in a market that otherwise doesn’t provide a job for themselves. So in many cases, these are uneducated, didn’t even make it through elementary school business owners. Yeah.
[00:05:25.850] – Ben
And I love that you You brought up that book. The survival of entrepreneurship is very different than a lot of entrepreneurs in the US. These people make money one day and they spend it that same day to put food on the table. A lot of these businesses aren’t going to have bank accounts. A lot will have bank accounts. That’s a little more common in Cambodia now. But a lot won’t. A lot of the businesses, the business owners, won’t be able to read and write. So there’s stark differences between small businesses in Cambodia and in the US. So because they’re not tracking revenue, they aren’t going to have the capacity to tell if they’re making money. So all the businesses in our training are going to get at least revenue tracking training. And then two-thirds of the businesses are also going to get marketing training on top of that. We’re going to teach them some customer service principles. When someone comes into your shop, you smile, you use their name, you learn their name. Here’s the difference, the benefits of putting up signage. Here’s the benefits of putting pricing on your products. We’re going to teach them how to use Facebook because Facebook is very popular in Cambodia.
[00:06:35.490] – Ben
So how can you use that for your business? So we’re going to give them marketing training in that regard.
[00:06:37.740] – Christian
A little bit of social media. Yeah, exactly. Cool.
[00:06:40.550] – Ben
And then the last one-third, so we’ve staggered into three groups. The Last month, they’re going to get that revenue training and marketing training, but they’re also going to get… It’s a training program from Oxfam called GAL, stands for Gender Action Learning System. But what you’re really trying to do is help people set goals and vision and show them how they can attain that. We’re going to have partners and spouses come in with a small business owner and take the training together, and they’re going to set household goals and business-level goals.So.
[00:07:14.790] – Christian
As a couple?As.
[00:07:15.600] – Ben
A couple.Okay.Much of that training is focused on gender because there are huge gender disparities in the country where, sadly, there’s a lot of abuse.For Sure. We want to help these husband and wife couples learn to work better together. Husbands realize that they can’t gamble and drink the money away, that their wives are working hard to earn. Or it could be vice versa. But we’re going to teach about these gender norms, more healthy gender norms, and try to help them overcome abuse and bad patterns, set better habits as a family. And we’re hoping, of course, that that third group that gets all of this training will grow a lot more more revenue than the other groups. Their businesses will actually perform better. And they’re going to go in their communities and train other people in their communities, too. So there’s what we call peer sharing upscaling, or peer middle peer upscaling is what it’s sometimes called. So they’re going to be taking the training we give them, and they’re going to give it to peer businesses and family members and friends. And we’re going to keep track of that and see how many people we can help.
[00:08:25.320] – Christian
Almost like a once you’re converted, go forth and convert your brother. Exactly. Yeah, totally. Cool. So just to summarize, then we’ve got three different groups going on in Cambodia. We have the tier one group, which is just getting training on how to track the revenue. Then we have a tier two group, which is getting how to track your revenue and how to market your business with some basic principles, right? And then tier three group is getting how to track your revenue, how to market your business, and how to set goals with your spouse, and and hopefully live harmoniously.
[00:09:02.530] – Ben
Exactly. Yeah. And that goal setting thing for a lot of our listeners, goal setting is something that you do, right? It’s part of your life. You’re taught how to set goals. Every New Year, you set goals and you break them by February. From a young age. From a young age, you’re taught that. And that comes into the mindset that Americans have. So, Christian, question for you. For your honors thesis, you’re diving into the revenue tracking, and you did a pre-study where you asked some questions about fixed versus growth mindset. Can you tell our listeners a little bit what you found there?
[00:09:35.850] – Christian
Yeah, for sure, Ben. So honestly, it was really interesting. A lot of the data that we got out of the pre-screening survey was not It was non-conclusive. There wasn’t a lot of variation. It all just leaned one way or the other. However, something that we look for when we’re talking about surveys and statistical significance is things that are out of norm. Usually, if it’s one or two data points, we call it an outlier and just ignore it. But in the case of we asked three questions that we put under the mindset category, looking at fixed and growth mindset. And we used a five at Likert scale to measure the degree to which the participants agreed or disagreed to several statements. Examples of these statements would be something like, I was born with a certain amount of intelligence, something like that. They’re supposed to agree or disagree. And what we found was in the majority of the cases, Cambodians are actually about a two out of five on the scale, meaning that they are leaning towards the fixed, mind mindset more than the growth mindset. The reason that’s significant is because it goes contrary to the trends we see in other parts of the world, such as the United States, where most of the population predominantly self-identifies as growth mindset.
[00:10:59.860] – Christian
Whether or not that’s true is another question entirely. But I think there’s definitely a social norm where we want to appear growth mindset, and that just doesn’t exist over there. At least that’s what we’re seeing.
[00:11:14.070] – Ben
Yeah. Those three questions you asked, they were from Carol Dweck. She is a psychologist. I think she’s a psychologist. Might be a sociologist.
[00:11:22.610] – Christian
Yeah, from Stanford University.
[00:11:23.650] – Ben
Yeah. So she’s a researcher. Has done some great work looking at social versus fixed mindsets, and she came up with those skills. Well, let’s take a step back. Can you explain what the difference is between growth and fixed mindset?
[00:11:35.490] – Christian
For sure. For anyone that doesn’t know yet, Carol Dweck, she coined these terms growth mindset, fixed mindset, because For a long time, we’ve just been talking vaguely about these ideas that are actually all very related and correlated. So a fixed mindset would be, for example, someone that really believes that they That growth is limited. Someone that believes that they’re born with a certain amount of intellectual potential, a certain amount of physical potential. It’s just this idea that you can only get so good at anything, and then you’re just done. And then on the other side of the spectrum, we have a growth mindset. Growth mindset is much more opportunistic. I guess we could say they’re Maybe without over generalizing, you’ve got an optimistic side and then a realistic or pessimistic side on the other side. So these are optimists, people that don’t define themselves by what they’ve done in the past or what they’ve seen other people do. They see opportunities for growth around them. And this is growth, fundamentally, they believe that they can get smarter than they have been or than they are, which is something that’s really hard teach. It’s just an innate principle, but we can influence them, which is cool.
[00:13:06.160] – Ben
Yeah, there’s research that came out of BIO recently. I think it was the strategy professors that did this research. I wish I had the document in front of me. It’s recent research that looked at fixed versus growth mindsets. I believe their conclusion was that if you get couples working together as a family level, it’s better at helping move from a fixed or growth mindset. I think that’s what one of their main findings was. If I remember correct, that was the impetus for me thinking, Hey, we need to have this in one of our interventions. Have couples taking the train together to help move that fixed mindset to more of a growth mindset.
[00:13:49.020] – Christian
Right. And even though that’s not necessarily our key outcome, we’re looking at revenue, specifically, this could be potentially another outcome. If we repeat the survey at the end of the study and we see some significant differences in where these participants are falling on mindset, that’s huge. Moving the pendulum is a big deal when it comes to mindset.
[00:14:13.710] – Ben
Yeah, it really is. It’s interesting thinking about a couple. So my wife of 18 years, we’re both very different in a lot of things. I’m a lot more of risk taker in some things. But when it comes to growth mindset, she’s a total cheerleader. She She cheers on my boys, and she regularly tells my boys, You can do anything you want. You can do anything you say your heart to. That’s what she tells them. Everyone wants to all say, No, they can’t. They couldn’t go run a mile in four minutes. Some runners are genetically different than my boys.
[00:14:47.200] – Christian
Sure.in that crushing reality.I know.
[00:14:49.290] – Ben
I deliver the crushing blows to my boys. But my wife is really of the mindset that you can do anything you say your heart to. I love that. It’s something as a companionship, we grow together and helps me be more of a cheerleader, too. So that growth mindset, I think, is important for people. And we’re hoping to help Cambodians in Samarit. The small businesses that are not like that now become that a little bit more. Yeah.
[00:15:12.320] – Christian
So we’re super excited about all of that as far as our research goes. However, we’re going to be doing some other stuff in Cambodia in addition to the research.
[00:15:22.290] – Ben
We are. Of the things we have planned, what’s the thing that you’re most excited for, Christian?
[00:15:29.900] – Christian
I’ve got to say, I can’t wait to see the Angkorwat. If you haven’t seen it before, just for our listeners out there, go ahead and do yourself a favor. Look up some pictures of the Encoreuat. It’s actually the world’s biggest religious monument, which is crazy, and it is, from what I’ve seen, enormous. So I’m really excited to see that firsthand. I’ve read a lot about it.
[00:15:53.920] – Ben
It’s enormous, and unlike most other historical UNICEF, cultural ruin type places around the world, you can actually walk up the steps of the temple and walk through some of the rooms, and you can walk through the temple. Unlike if you go to Chichanitza in Mexico, amazing, wonderful place to go visit, but they don’t let you go on top of any of the structures because they’re worried they’re going to crode and decay with time. When I went to Anchor Wat last, it was probably eight years ago now, seven to eight At that time, they let us walk all over the temple. Pretty sure they still do, which is really cool that you get to walk through the temple.
[00:16:36.980] – Christian
Yeah, such a hands-on experience. Very hands-on. I’m extremely excited for that.
[00:16:40.720] – Ben
Some other things that we’re going to do. What am I most excited about? I’ve done that before already. The thing I’m probably most excited for, and it sounds really geeky, but… Oh, the Floating Village. On the Thonle Sop, Thonle Sop is a a big lake in the middle of Cambodia. It’s one of the few, if the only, I think I’ve seen that it’s the only, but I sometimes question that source. It has a river that flows into it, that reverses directions based on seasonality.
[00:17:14.480] – Christian
Right. So soon as the season, the lake overflows.
[00:17:17.310] – Ben
And so the river flows back out. It’s crazy. So because of that, it’s a weird geological phenomenon. But on top of that, a lot of poor people actually live on the lake in a floating village. And the village actually does float and actually moves. And so we’re going to go on a boat and we get to tour the floating village. It’s a tourist thing to go and see how people are living over the water. A cool thing to see. But I really want to see what small businesses are doing in the Floating Village. So we’re going to go and talk to some microentrepreneurs in the Floating Village and get a feel for what challenges they’re facing, how humanitarian work might be able to help them in the future. And we’re going to report and dialog that as well while we’re there.
[00:18:08.150] – Christian
Yeah, we’re actually planning on, hopefully, recording a couple, at least one or two interviews from that area. So stay tuned for a future podcast coming to Inside the Cambodia Project, where we might feature one or two of those conversations from the Tonnesop. Totally.
[00:18:27.210] – Ben
So, Christian, what are some other things you’re excited for that we’re going to do more culturally or funnily?
[00:18:32.190] – Christian
Well, this is also geeky, but we’re planning on doing some Cambodian cooking. We’re going to take a cooking class. So I’m about to polish my chef hat. But that should be really fun.
[00:18:47.270] – Ben
And that’s going to be fun because you can do cooking classes that most of them are in restaurants. This is going to be in someone’s home that actually invites people into the home, and we’re going to be cooking in a Cambodia person’s home, which is going to be cool.
[00:19:00.060] – Christian
That’s so cool.
[00:19:00.910] – Ben
We get to see how they live a little bit more than if we were to see a restaurant.
[00:19:04.260] – Christian
Yeah, I think if there’s one thing I’ve learned from… I’ve had so many conversations about culture with Bruce Money, with Scott Webb, just running the podcast. They I would say similar things, which is you have to get outside yourself enough to really start to appreciate the culture. I think that’s what I’m most excited for, Ben, is just getting outside myself, trying to let all my My Western developed economy biases fall to the wayside for a second. So I can really try to understand and appreciate what’s going on in Cambodia.
[00:19:43.890] – Ben
One of the culture things. So our driver when we were there, Loy. Amazing man. Hopefully, we’re going to see if he wanted to do a podcast with us, too. He lived through the Kamai Rouge, sad. So he lost family members. He went out to one of the refugee camps on the Thai border. He saw that firsthand. But he was telling me, so when I was in Cambodia last time, he was telling me something that I would consider a cultural phenomenon. They wouldn’t consider it that. But from a Western perspective, it’s very different. Their homes are built elevated. Most of their homes, not most, a lot of the homes are built up on sticks. They elevate them. I always thought it was for flooding, like during the monsoon season. I asked him that, Is it because of flooding? He’s like, No, it’s not because of flooding. He says, It makes our space more usable. Because in the heat of the summer, you can go down there, you can hang up your hammock, and it gets frost brews that you wouldn’t have in your home, and it still has shade. So it’s actually the coolest part of the house is beneath it.
[00:20:45.090] – Ben
And he says, neighbors will get together all the time, hang out in their hammocks, and just talk in the evenings. I thought, That’s wonderful. That’s so different than Americans. A good friend from Pennsylvania Stefan Whites, sorry. He is from Belgium, and he’s lived all around Europe. And he told me, one thing he was really surprised about is Americans have beautiful yards, but they never use them. They’re never outside. They’re always in their air-conditioned homes. He’s like, They’re not out mingling and talking. And that’s something that I love about the Cambodians, is they just mingle, they talk, they socialize. Something that we can learn from them, and hopefully, we’ll get to see that a little bit while we’re there.
[00:21:31.430] – Christian
Yeah, I will say, one of my biggest regrets that I don’t speak their language. I know, me too. Unfortunately, I won’t be doing too much mingling. That’s true. At least with the Cambodians. But I’ll do my best.
[00:21:44.880] – Ben
Another fun thing that we’re going to do, if you get a chance to go to Cambodia, you can visit Badam Bung. We’re going to spend a day and a half in Badam Bung to follow up on that pre-study that you helped launch. And they have a bamboo train. So they actually have these portable these small little train system. They really have two axles with wheels on them that they put down. And they put a bamboo platform on top of that. And they have an engine that turns the back rotor, the back axial, and it just goes down the train. This is the train tracks that are used by their actual trains. If you see a train, they stop it and you have to jump off and take off the bamboo thing and the axles quickly before the train comes and runs you over. We get to do that.Oh.
[00:22:28.040] – Christian
Man.yeah, we’re going to go see.I’m sure BIO risk management is going to love that one.
[00:22:31.720] – Ben
Yeah, don’t tell BIO. We’re going to go see this big bat cave in a Buddhist temple ground area. There’s a cave where they say about a million bats live and they leave every night at dawn. Or is it dusk?Dusk.They leave at dusk. At night time. Yes, dusk. They leave at the same time. It’s cool. You see a stream of bats coming out. We got to see that while we’re there. We’re going to go see a beautiful waterfall and do a little hike.Yeah.
[00:23:00.200] – Christian
It sounds like we have plenty to look forward to.Plenty to look forward to.
[00:23:03.010] – Ben
Yeah, Cambodia is amazing. I’m excited to take you there.
[00:23:05.570] – Christian
Yeah. I have one last question for you, Ben, before we close. I know there’s been a lot of preparation going into this trip. It’s not a simple task getting research running in a foreign country, let alone in your home country. And a really important facet of international research is making sure you have partners on the ground so that they can keep the work moving forward when you’re not there. What has it been like finding partners, good partners for our research in Cambodia?
[00:23:42.240] – Ben
Yeah, that’s a great question. So there’s a lot of nonprofit work that’s done in Cambodia. And when I was out in Cambodia a month and a half ago or so, I met with a lot of good partners, and we may still hire some of their staff. But I realized if you want good English speakers, they don’t have to speak good English. We’re happy to get… We’re going to give them trainings next week, to our trainers who are then going to give that same training to the businesses. We’re going to give our training in English because we don’t speak Kama’i. I’m sure we’re going to have some of our staff members, our partners there on the ground that only speak Kama’i, and so we’re going to have it translated when we’re giving it, and that’s That’s great. I want to give jobs to anyone that we can. But it’s been really hard to find people in Cambodia. I’m glad that you brought it up. It’s one of the difficult moving parts that we have to work through. It’s difficult because a lot of the established nonprofits pay their people very, very well, almost American wages in a country where cost of living is one-tenth what it is in America.
[00:24:55.180] – Ben
Wow. And so research funding-wise, I couldn’t go in there and just hire What are all these staff members from our partner NGOs because they’re so expensive. So instead, we’re leaning on those partner NGOs for advice and help, on the ground support system.Moral support.Moral support, helping us find people that we can hire. But there’s a lot of good young people in the CM Reep that I’ve been put in touch with that we’re hiring this project. We’re going to have five different staff members we’re hiring that live in CM Reep. One of them is going to be a project evaluator, so they’re going to stay at arm’s length. I’m going to make sure it’s someone that doesn’t know the other four people, well, at least. They aren’t going to do any of the actual training. They’re going to do the observing and make sure the training is going the way it’s supposed to. They’re going to be the ones that are auditing the surveys that we have going along to make sure that the surveys are filled out correctly. They’re just a quality check. We’re going to have that person. Then we’re going to have four trainers that do the actual training and do follow-up and support for the businesses.
[00:25:58.360] – Christian
You said with 240 businesses,240 businesses, right?240.
[00:26:00.900] – Ben
Businesses, yeah.Dank. Yeah, they’re going to be these… We’re hiring there for seven months. They’re going to be really busy for the seven months keeping up with the 240 businesses.
[00:26:07.920] – Christian
I bet. Yeah, it’s going to be a lot of work. Yeah. Well, cool, Ben. Thanks so much for… I mean, agreeing to do this last episode. We wanted to use this episode as a way to transition into a summer hiatus because that’s right. Unfortunately, after this trip, we are parting ways for a couple of months. I’m going off to for my marketing internship. And so we’re going to… We decided to give our listeners a rest, a small break to enjoy their summer as well as we just let.
[00:26:40.040] – Ben
Thank you, mom, for listening to this podcast so faithfully, but you can take a break over the summer.
[00:26:43.540] – Christian
Exactly. We’re just going to let the research continue on in Cambodia, and we will continue to work remotely here in the United States for the rest of the summer. But don’t think that this is the end because it’s not. After a brief hiatus this summer, we’re planning on returning learning with season 2 of Inside the Cambodia Project. That’s going to feature many interviews from our time in Cambodia, where we’re going to be for the next two weeks. Definitely stay tuned for updates with that.
[00:27:13.960] – Ben
Yeah. Great Great interview. It’s a first-hand experience from someone that lived in the Kamai Rouge. He’s willing to share his stories. We’re going to have business owners. We’re going to have NGO leaders. Lots of great people that you’ll be able to hear from in the podcast next September.
[00:27:31.100] – Christian
Yeah. So once again, thank you so much for listening. If you’re someone that’s been with us since the beginning, thank you for your loyalty. And if you’re new to the podcast, we’ll be back soon. But until the fall, just one more reminder for all of our listeners out there, remember that you have the potential to make a difference, whether or not you’re traveling the world or you’re in your own community, you really can change the lives of those around you. And so, as always, remember to lift where you stand.